All That Brash & Trash....

CATS, DOGS AND MY NEIGHBOUR

2012-02-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Have you raised dogs that bark only at cats and other dogs? Well, I have. My dogs bark only at these beings and just to make sure that these animals do not ever return the same way, they bark about half an hour more, long after the other beings have disappeared. I forgot to add that my dogs bark only in the night and take their much deserved rest during day time. They spend the entire day time sleeping. They couldn’t be bothered if someone opened the gate and walked in. To make matters worse in the night, two cats appear out of nowhere and meet on the terrace of the neighbour’s house. They spent the entire night hollering the most unprintable adjectives at each other. The pitch rises to a crescendo and breaks off for sometime. But the dogs never cease to express their displeasure at having to listen to the choicest of harsh words nor show any let up in barking back their loudest form of protests. Needless to say, these innuendoes fall on deaf ears and the cats ignore the dogs with a contemptuous flick of their ears and a wink that contains a most derisively coined expression, something like the middle finger up.

”Shut up, Denny, Timmy“. I lean out of the window and yell at the dogs.

The dogs turn around to stare at me and utter a short “whooof”, which I always thought was the short form of “ahh .…shaddap, dumbo”. It was either that or something worse because the dogs immediately resumed their shouting match with renewed vigour. I seemed to be the only one who was affected by all this noise in the night when my parents, sister and the entire neighbourhood can sleep through the entire ruckus and not hear anything at all in the night.

“Peaceful sleep last night. I remember having hit the bed and woke up just now, feeling great. This is a great neighbourhood and you could cut the tranquility with a knife.” Said my sister.

“I could use the knife too, to slit the neck of these damned dogs. I am sick and tired of not being able to sleep in the night because of their incessant barking.”

“Come on, Chetta. It was so silent last night that you could hear an ant burp a mile away.”

“If you were sleeping so peacefully, how did you hear the ant burp? I was up all night and I did not hear any ant burp.” I had never heard an ant burp nor was sure if I would recognize it if the ant sat on my ear lobe, leaned forward and burped right into my ear, but I was not going to give up so easy.

And as with the dogs who “whoof” at my reprimands, she turned away and sighed deeply, “hhhhmmmfff” with a heavy emphasis on the “fff”s. Now, this was often the kind of response I got from my parents and sis, when I asked them questions that irked them.

If it was the dogs that punctured my long strip of sleep in the night, it was the turn of the cell phone which rang intermittently, with a vengeance during day time. I had realized a few days after buying this sim card that this number belonged to someone who used to run a restaurant.

“Two double omelets, 4 chapatti with subzi, please. Deliver them to ZRBNA 4005, varkala at 11.30 am.”

“Sir, this is not the restaurant anymore. I happen to have bought his number”

“Do you know the phone number of the guy who owned your phone number before you owned his phone number?”

“No and dear sir, believe me, there are things I would like to tell him if I knew his number.” I would hiss thus.

Imagine how it is for a man who cannot sleep well neither during the night nor day. He would be hopping mad and ready for fisticuff at the drop of a hat. I was going to do something about these dogs from barking so much in the night. From experience I realized that dogs barked only if they were annoyed at something. They did not greet each other with a few short whoofs which may sound like “hello” or “howdy”. Dogs barked only to express their displeasure. I have never heard them say “thank you” for the food they get everyday nor have I heard them say “I love you”. It was always complaints, complaints and complaints. I wonder how any being can exist such.

My plan of action was very simple. Remove those things that made these guys holler in fury. This meant that the cats that appeared on the terrace of the neighbour’s house have to disappear or simply, not appear at all, each night. I only had to wait till these critters appeared, pick up stone, throw at them and that should scare them off. I might have to repeat this procedure a few days before these dumb creatures got the message and melted into the darkness.

It was past 11 pm when the cats appeared on the terrace, the next night. I did not see them arrive at the scene of action until one of them vehemently expressed his repugnance at the other’s arrival. I did not blame him because that was exactly how I would voice my disgust, albeit in a different language. I picked up the stone and taking careful aim, threw it at the cats. The cats seemed totally unconcerned that a stone had missed them by a few inches nor did they mellow down their cacophonic meows. But what they and I heard was the window pane of the neighbour’s house break into a few hundred pieces. They jumped up with a start at this sound, but soon settled down as they decided that this sound was not any of their concern. I also waited for a few anxious moments for the lights to flicker on, the neighbour to appear at the terrace and threaten me with dire consequences. But nothing of the sort happened. The cats waited just long enough to make sure that the last piece of the glass pane had settled down and went back to their repertoire.

I was very upset with this turn of events. I was very sure that no one would see me in the pitch darkness and so, did not budge from where I was perched, which was on balcony of my bedroom. After giving the neighbour about ten minutes to wake up, run up to the terrace and shout at me, I decided to act again, since the neighbour did not bother to respond to the hullabaloo. I picked up the next stone and threw it in the direction of the cats again. I was positive that this stone would not break any window pane, as I had already achieved as much with my first throw and the path of the second stone was thus cleared. Hardly a nano second must have elapsed before I heard a loud scream. It was unlike any that I had ever heard before. It went like EAAAOOOOHHHHWW!!” and it was quite unlikely that the cats would have made such a sound. This screech was followed by a loud thud which resembled something like a big log falling on the ground while being lifted into a lorry. I peered hard into the darkness to see what it was, but the next thing I knew was waking up from the balcony of my bedroom, the next morning.

My forehead hurt so bad that I thought it was going to explode. A careful exploration of the concerned area with my hand revealed a lump which was just about the size of the stone I chose to throw at the cats. The back side of skull hurt too, probably because my hands failed to initiate action to support my body weight on the way to the floor and the rear side of my medulla oblongata must have tried hard to break the fall. Needless to say, another lump developed there too. I could not fathom how this could have happened.

“What happened to your forehead?” My sister asked without looking alarmed and least bit of concern. She believed that I was prone to meeting with such accidents and was only curious to know how it happened. “It happened again”, she announced to my mother who looked quizzically at my forehead.

“What do you mean, again?”

“He doesn’t remember what happened?”

If I remember right, the last time it happened was when I was playing cricket. I remember trying to take a sneaky single, but then nothing afterwards except waking up in the hospital bed. The other players say that I nicked the ball to the first slip, started to run for the single, when the ball which was thrown at the wicket hit me on the head. This time it was very different. I vaguely remember this explosion in the head, a brilliantly lit flash of light inside and then nothing afterwards. Angry with the cats was the least I could say at this turn of events. I squarely blamed the cats for this lump on my forehead. If the cats had not appeared at the terrace, the dogs would not have caused the ruckus and I would have slept peacefully in the night. I would not contemplate such a drastic step which cost the neighbour his window pane and won me a lump on the forehead. The lump seemed to growing every hour and by evening, it looked almost like the horn of the fabled creature Unicorn.

I went out to the balcony of the bedroom in the evening and found the neighbour was at the terrace inspecting the surroundings. Surprisingly, he also sported this Unicorn like protrusion on his forehead, exactly the same size as the one I sported on my forehead. I also noticed with a pang of guilt that a gaping hole has come about where there was a window pane until last night. On closer scrutiny, I came to the conclusion that the neighbour did not suspect me of the window pane carnage in the terrace.

“Yoo hoo” I waved at him

“Yoooo hoooo” He waved back.

“What is on your forehead?” I was curious to know how he could have gotten an exact clone of my lump on his forehead.

“What happened to yours?” He was as curious about mine as I was of his.

“Don’t know how it came to existence at all” I told him the truth

“Neither do I, about mine. I heard the window pane break and came up on the terrace. The next thing I know, there was an explosion and a brilliantly lit bright light inside my head, which brought me closer to mother earth. I came around and threw a stone in the general direction from where a stone could have arrived to break my window pane”.

That explained the lump on my head. Now, I was very happy that I broke his window pane. He had it coming, what with his terrible attitude of throwing stones at the neighbour’s house with scant regard to whoever may be up and prowling about in the balcony.

“Perfect climate. But it could strike up a bit of a chill in the night and you could catch a terrible cold if you were in the terrace in the night, around 11 pm”. I did not want him around tonight when I was going to throw stones at the cats again and thought it was a fine idea to warn him of the impending consequences if he stepped out in the night.

“That is what I thought too. 11 pm is not a good time to be up on the terrace, whatever noise you happen to hear”.

And as decided earlier, I was up and waiting in the balcony for the cats and they arrived on time. It was business as usual for the cats as they picked up the thread from where they dropped it the night before and carried on without missing a beat. The dogs too raised their usual protests, which as usual fell on deaf ears with the cats occasionally blinking their eyes and flicking their ears. If I was going to throw a stone at these little balls of nuisance, I was going to hit them and was not going to take any chances this time. The only way to do that was to get as close to the cats as possible.

Now, this idea of mine required that I jump up on the terrace of the neighbour so as to reach the cats. This also meant that I had to climb up my compound wall, jump up on the sunshade of the neighbour’s house, before clambering on to the terrace. My dogs stared at me in astonishment as I prepared to clear my compound wall and one of them even encouraged me with a few “whoofs”; not the same blasphemous whoofs, but a different kind of whoof which was hitherto never heard before from their throats. The cats were still pitching innuendos at each other and did not notice that I was already up on the sunshade. But here, I was faced with another problem. If I got myself up on the terrace, there was nothing that offered me any cover, to get as close to the cats. And the cats would spot me and disappear into the darkness as they always do, in the night. I decided to walk along the sunshade until I reached quite near them before throwing the stone in their direction. A sudden sinking feeling developed in my stomach and same brilliantly lit flash of light illuminated the insides of my skull for a brief moment, the same way it did the previous day before all lights went off.

I woke up the next day with more pain in the head than the day before. On careful examination of the concerned area, exactly as the careful examination of the concerned area I did the previous day, I found that the lump I had on the previous day had given birth to a smaller lump very next to it. I also realized that I was not lying on my bed, but on a surface which had a lot of sand and flower pots on it. I sat up and looked around. On closer examination of the surrounding area, very unlike the closer examination of the concerned area I did earlier and the day before, I came to the conclusion that I was still at the neighbour’s house, in his compound and had spent the entire night sleeping there. I tried to think back, but my brain was acting a little jammed and not receptive to commands like “think back”. I jumped back into my compound where the dogs treated with more whoofs which may have been closest thing they ever said to “hey, good to see you back”.

I turned around to look back at the sunshade, which area I was treading before waking up from the arms of Mother Earth, in the neighbour’s compound. I shuddered in horror as I saw what had befallen me the night before. The sunshade was just long enough to reach the end of the window and did run the entire length of the building. In the pitch darkness, I walked upto the edge of the sunshade and had fallen face down, which explained the second lump on the forehead, and woke up just in time before the neighbour found me out.

“Hey, you had been to a stag party, yesterday?” My sis met me at the door.

“Nope. Why do you ask?”

“You seem to be developing horns all over, the kind only stags have”

“Very funny”.

I was more determined than ever to rid the cats from the neighbourhood. Now that I knew the terrain of the neighbourhood, it was going to be easy this time. I would choose the window which was right below where the cats would be sitting, straighten myself upto a standing position and throw the stone right at one of them. From that distance I could hit an ant’s behind without taking aim.

I was all geared up for action when another bright idea hit me all of a sudden and I wasted no time praising myself on such quick thinking. My mother and sis would not have believed that I was capable of such brilliance and I had half a mind to wake them up to let them in on the whole show. But my sister being a hard core animal lover would have objected to the very idea and put a spanner in the works. She was the kind who went around saying that cats and other animals had as much rights as we humans did, which she said was guaranteed in the Indian Constitution. I could argue on that point for months, but never did lest she got annoyed so much as to alter my physical constitution.

I decided I was not going to throw stones this time, but simply creep up on these cats and say a loud “BOO”. I would crawl up on these darned cats by getting to the sunshade above which they were sitting, slowly raise my head to position, arch back my entire upper body as a regular rooster did before blasting out a vociferous ‘cockadoodle doo’ and then shout out “BOO”. This would scare the living daylights out of these beings and would never contemplate coming back to the same area, ever again. Now, who wouldn’t be terrified if someone crawled up on them in the dead of the night, took aim in the direction of the ears and screamed “BOO” with all the lung power at his command? I congratulated myself over and over at this great flash of brilliance. This idea, when put to practice, also simply halts me from wasting stones at window panes as also hitting the cats as to cause grievous injury.

“Yoo hoo” I greeted the neighbour as cheerily as I did the previous day, as he appeared at the terrace that evening.

“Yooo hooo” He reciprocated with the same enthusiasm. “Now, did you have two horns yesterday or you grew one more today?” He asked me with a malicious gleam in the eyes.

I glared at him and vowed to break a few more of his window panes as early as I could. But now, I had other important things in mind. My eyes scanned the entire house of the neighbour, carefully noting in mind where the sunshade ended as also the usual position taken by the cats. There was no window shade right under that area and the closest one was just under the broken window pane. I decided that if I shouted loudly enough, it would still scare the cats. I may have to repeat the procedure for a day more or two, but I was sure it would do.

Strangely enough, the dogs did not break into a relentless staccato of yaps at the sound of the cats. They seemed to wait for me and even encouraged me with a few whoofs to climb up the wall. Slowly, ever so slowly I lifted myself onto the sunshade. The cats were about ten feet away from where I was crouching. Slowly, slower than my slow ascend onto the sunshade, I straightened myself up and arched back to bellow a full blooded “BOO”. As my body arched and then straightened with springiness of a coiled spring and the “BOO” was half way out of my mouth, I saw out of the corner of the eye, a figure clad in black clothes with its head covered, get up from the other side of the parapet of the terrace. This figure appeared so close to me that it was the scariest thing to happen to a man who believed in ghosts, devils and other alien beings. I flung myself around and screamed the entire “BOO” right on the ghost like figure’s face. The creature let out a screech which exactly the same in intensity and tone as the “EAAAOOOOHHHHWW” I heard on the day I broke the window pane. I did not wait to see what happened to the ghost after it was hit by my “BOO”. I was sure I heard a loud thud, again, very similar to thud I heard on the day I broke the window pane.

I jumped back onto the compound wall, down to the ground and was about to race back into the house when this explosion and brilliantly lit bright light appeared in my head again. And as was their practice, they went off as fast as they came in and me, flat on the ground unconscious.

I woke with the same heaviness in head. The last three days of practice had not gotten me used to it, but it only got heavier. On careful examination of the concerned area, I found I had three lumps on the forehead and one on the back side of my head too. As I opened my eyes wider and let in more light, more pictures started to appear before me. They were in the shape of my mother, sister and the neighbour. The neighbour was wearing the black dress which I recognized as the one worn by this ghostly apparition on the terrace. I was very amused to see that the neighbour also had unicorn like protrusion on the back side of his head. In fact, I liked it so much that I burst out laughing. I was so happy that he who was callous enough to throw stones at the neighbour’s house on mere suspicion that a stone may have arrived from there, is suffering the same way as I did.

“What are you laughing at?” He spat out the question with a murderous intent, but it was lost on me, because I was busy laughing.

“You look like a secretary bird, with that tuft of hair at the back.” I continued laughing

“And you look like a Triceratops with two extra horns at the back.” He quipped back.

“Shut up, both of you. Pray tell me what happened?” My mother got in between us.

“I was sleeping when someone threw a stone at my window and broke the glass. I came to the terrace and was hit by another stone. I do not think that it was the same stone that hit my window that hit my forehead, but a different one, which accounts for this lump on the forehead. Since that night, I would peep out of the broken window pane every night, to see if any one threw more stones. Yesterday, I saw a figure clamber on top of your compound wall, while I was peeping through the hole. So I crept out of the room, crawled myself up to the parapet of the terrace and got up to see who was on the other side, when this figure sprung up and yelled “BOO” at me. I jumped about five feet high in the air before falling flat on my back; my back side of the head hit the floor which accounts for the other lump on the back of the head. Upon standing up, I saw this figure jumping back into your compound and I threw a stone at him. Only after it fell down and all of you descended on the scene that I realized it was this idiot who broke my window pane, threw a stone on my head, scared me stiff with a “BOO” and that which caused me to fall down. I do not understand why this clown climbed up on my terrace and scared me with a ‘BOO”.

“I thought you were a cat” I ventured my opinion.

“WHAT?!”

“I meant I was going to scare the cats on your terrace with a loud “BOO”, but you got in between the cats and the “BOO”.

“You got onto my terrace to scare a cat?”

“Two cats”

“Two cats?”

“Yes, two cats”

“You mean to say that it is alright to jump on to a stranger’s house to scare off a few cats, when you could have done the same standing in your compound”

“My dogs have been trying to shoo off the cats with the loudest form of barks, but to no avail. So I thought it was best to get as close to the cats as possible”.

“He is lying about the cats. I have never seen any cat in my compound. He probably got in to my house for something else”.

“I think so too. I have never seen any cats around here”. My sister put in her two pence.

“NO, NO, the cats were there. You could check with the dogs, if you want. Or you could wait till 11 pm tonight and see for yourself”.

But the cats never ever turned up at that spot ever again. The “BOO” must have scared them away for good. The dogs too have given up barking in the night but the entire episode wrecked the neighbour’s sleep permanently. The entire terrace was brightly lit every night from the next day on, to prevent me from springing any more surprise “BOOS”. Every now and then, I would see him prowling on the terrace, in the night or peeping out of the hole in the window pane which he never repaired. In fact, my neighbour had completely lost his marbles. I would also occasionally see him stare into the darkness, probably looking for those cats, which probably chose another place very far away to shout at each other.

My mother and sister have not given up asking me why I jumped on to his house and do not believe that there ever were any cats in the entire neighbourhood. They still believe that nights don’t get more silent than the ones in their precinct.

“It is so peaceful here, in the night. So silent that you could hear an ant burp a mile away”.

ME, PREETI AND TYRANNOSAURUS

2011-12-27T05:15:00.000-08:00

The gymnasium is a place where people asked you the most stupid things. It would seem that weight training not only thickened the muscles, but thickened the grey matter as well. Not even a single day passes by without someone asking me something silly.

Today was not any different. I picked up the phone which was shaking violently at being ignored despite screeching as best as it could.

"Who is this?"

"Yoo hoo"

"Yoo hoo yourself. Who yoo?"

"Iam Yoo hoo. We a yoo's mother. He is the chinese student you took in under your guidance yesterday."

"Oh ok. How a yoo?"

"Ho a yoo will join too. Sir, I wishes to asketh some dowbts"

"Shoots...er...shoot"

"You gave my son a diet chart. You tolds to eat 8 small meals a day, to lose weight. Now my son has breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only three meals and he is fat. Now you asketh him to eats eight meals. It will make him fatter faster."

I explained to her why the three meal system did not work and 8 small meals would help him.

"Why is Wee a yoo is fat and Ho a yoo is not fat? Both eat the same food."

"They eat the same food?"

"Yes, they do"

"Have the same father too?"

"I don't understand"

"Never mind. They eat the same quantity too?"

"Almost. Actually We a yoo eats a little less, always"

"You mean the fat one?"

"Yes"

"And is fatter than the thin one?"

"Yes. The fat one is fatter than the thin one"

"The fat one will always be fatter than the thin one. It is only natural"

"No sir, you do not understand. Why is the fat one fatter than the thin one, even though he eats less?"

"It is only natural"

"What is?”

"The fat one being fatter than the thin one. The world over, the fat ones have always been fatter than the thin ones. I don't think your fatso…..er...fat son is going to be an exception and become fatter than the thin one, and still be thinner than the thin one. He will always be fatter than the thin one"

"But why is he fatter than the thin one when they eat the same food and about the same quantity too?

"He is probably eating something on the sly"

"No, he is not"

"He may not tell you everything, but boys will be boys and they always do like to try out something more interesting. They do the same with all women"

She left it at that. Needless to say there are always people heckling me with utter nonsense. It has always been so, ever since I started a gymnasium on my own.

This story I am about to tell you, happened a long time back, just about the time when I had just set up a gymnasium and was eager to catch all business that passed by my door.

I had personally met and promised each and every owner of shops and business centres on my building a certain sum of money for every member they sent to my gym. And soon the business started to look good.

I also engaged the services of two big muscular hunks to train the members and paid them well enough to tell everyone that they became this big because of my training methods. These guys were heavily armed with all the muscular protrusions from neck down, but a little light and numb in the upper regions of their cerebral cortex. This was probably, I presumed, due to the fact these mountains of muscles did not get enough oxygen to work their brain and brawn at the same time. An occupational hazard; you were either big or strong or you were intelligent.

To compound matters further, there was this girl who had this nasty habit of standing a little too close to you when she had to ask a few doubts. She was pretty enough to stop all traffic if she just as much as appeared on the sidewalk of a road, and needless to say these muscle heads suffered a lot at her hands. She would sneak up on one of these guys from behind, stand so close and touch the shoulders before saying,

"Rosh, do you think my arms will stop looking this delicate if I did these arm exercises?"

The minute she put her hand on Rosh's shoulders, all his hair stood on end as if trying to be the first to reach out and touch her. He also shook mildly like a well oiled engine of a Royal Enfield bike and even purr ever so softly. He would turn around very slowly, taking utmost care not to knock her down and mustering all the gentleness at his command, coo so.

"No, Preeti, it will not happen. I have taken all the care in the world to make sure you do only those exercise which keep your arms this delicate, always"

"Oh, thanks Rosh...I always knew I could count on your advises. You really are one of those gentle giants... the kind women fall for."

And she would move a millimetre or so, closer. Now, this is the most dangerous moment in a man's life. Ask him to meet raging bulls head on or dive into a pool full of piranhas or jump inside a lion cage and pull its tail while it is gobbling up its dinner, he will do so without hesitation. Ask him to turn around, like Rosh had to turn around, and look at a girl in the eye and stay there without shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm is asking him to do the impossible. And yet, this was what Rosh had to do, turn around, look at the girl in the eye and not shake like this particular leaf that shakes its hips everytime she hears the word thunderstorm.

I happen to be one of the seasoned campaigners who had gone through worse in life and lived to tell the tale. You know... one of those guys who could turn around, look a pretty girl in the eye and not shake like this silly leaf I told you about. There are two ways of doing this. You had to clinically analyse why a leaf shook in a thunderstorm. I found the leaf's absolute lack of body weight being the reason for shaking so violently. In such situations, I always lifted something heavy and attached myself to it like an adhesive tape so that the heavy object would clamp down on all vigorous vibrations of the body. Another way was to suck in a gallon or two, more if you can, of the available air around you and hold the bally gas in you. This will also pin you to the ground.

Rosh's only option was to suck in and deprive the neighbourhood of all available oxygen. He grew about three inches sideways, before he looked at Preeti in the eye, as he was supposed to do. He had to take immense care not to knock Preeti down on the way to getting bigger as she was standing very very close. In fact, she stood so close to him that if she moved any closer, she would end up being on the other side of Rosh. Taking most care not let out an ounce of gas, he cooed again,

"Geee, Pranks Theeti.....er..ahh...I mean.....thanks Preeti"

Now, this intimacy did not go unnoticed in the gym. The thing with boys, especially those aspiring to be big and muscular is that they simply assumed that every beautiful girl who just as much as looked at them invariably fell in love with them too. And every single laddie in the gym thought that Preeti was his and considered it a real monkey business if someone just as much as glanced at her. The thing with this business of being a monkey is that you consider it a sin to monkey with another monkey's monkey.

One of the monkeys to voice his dissent was none other than the other trainer, Jay. Jay was bigger, taller and considered it impudence on the part of Rosh to have gone the distance with Preeti. Now, it was his turn to shake like a leaf in a thunderstorm. He shook very differently from the other leaf of which I mentioned, and it was obvious that lifting weights or sucking in air was not going to pin him down.

"What do you think you are doing, Rosh?"

“What do you think I was doing, Jay?"

Rosh was not about to back down and if he purred like the well oiled engine of a Royal Enfield bike earlier, he shook like the bike that developed engine trouble all of a sudden, now.

"Hey, cut it out" I jumped in between these two Himalayas of muscles.

This couldn’t go on forever. I had to stop these mountains of muscles from fighting with each other. I couldn’t fire them, because they were good trainers and the boys liked them a lot. But on the other side, if I let it go unchecked, it might prove to be the funeral of one of the trainers. I fervently wished something would happen that would shape up things for the better.

And then, it happened.

If Jay and Rosh were Himalayas of muscles, this guy who walked into the gym that day was so huge he blocked all sunlight falling on earth. His neck was so big it could give a rhino an inferiority complex; his arms so long, hairy and huge that you would think he stole them from a Gorilla and when he walked, the floor shook mildly [ not the same way that bally leaf that shaked ..er ..shooked.. ah...er...shook in thunderstorm] and had the grace, finesse and polish of a Tyrannosaurus with docked tail.

"Are you the owner of this hole?" T Rex asked me in a voice that resembled a rumble from the skies.

I think I said yes, though I do not remember hearing me say it, but T Rex nodded and growled.

"I wanna sign up"

There was something very terrifying of this monster dinosaur that my fingers acted like they were struck by 'rigor mortis'; a condition very akin to the feeling you get if a few ants crawled inside your pants, decided to attack and bite your rump while you are in a bus jam-packed with beautiful girls.

When T Rex worked out, all gym stopped to watch and held their breath. Lights flickered, altering from dim and bright in excitement. Boys gaped with their mouth open and Preeti watched him with the intensity of anticipation that comes to girls when they see Salman Khan about to step out of car at their door front.

T Rex was not exactly oblivious to all this attention and subservience from the other members. In fact, he enjoyed it very much especially when Preeti ignored Jay and Rosh and gave her undivided attention to him. Every time she cast a glance at T Rex, his lungs swelled up, his cheeks puffed up, his Adams Apple rolled up and down as though he was gulping down a few apples that rolled down his mouth, eventually landing in his stomach, his eyes bulged out as though he was trying to take in as much of Preeti as possible; all this causing him lift weights cranes would crumble under. He was also getting to be a little threatening in his posture if Preeti just as much glanced at anyone as he would stare that guy down. It caused so much consternation that in a week's time, all the boys in the gym had stopped looking at Preeti as though she was made of Baskin Robbins’s Iron Butter Scotch with black cherries on top laced with tangerine crème.

Now, it was Preeti’s turn to get worried. In the past, she used to get any man’s undivided attention and now, the boys would look away if she was anywhere in the vicinity. She could not figure out how this change could have come over these boys and everytime, she tried to get one of the members into a conversation, she would find that she was talking to a man who was about to do 100 m dash from where she was standing. But girls being girls, she did figure out that the reason was indeed T Rex. This seemed to upset her no end and she decided to hit back at T Rex as best as a woman could. And as they say, hell hath no fury than a woman scorned.

I did not know that she had these horrid plans for T Rex and I was to play a key role in it. As a normal man who was normally inclined to be attracted to beautiful women, it was only normal that I fell for her sweet talk and overtures, which were calculated to catch T Rex’s attention. I, on my part, was especially overjoyed when she started to give me all the attention she could bring to her command. She would loudly say, every time after her workout,

“Venu dear, would you please give me ride home?.”

“Sure, Preeti”

“I like sitting behind a strong man like you, who is so much in control of the bike”

Out of the corner of the eye, I could see that this remark from Preeti made T Rex swallow in a few gallons of air through the mouth and nose, so fast so that, it pulled some of the dumbbells up, making them stand on end, as though wishing to announce their willingness to be sucked into his cavernous thoracic cavity. He also uttered sounds like the kind you hear from a marsh buffalo which took in a swirl of green grass with a swish of its tongue and found out that it was actually made of fibre plastic. Occasionally he would shake his head violently, that resembled an elephant shaking off mud from its body. His displeasure was very obvious and a shadow of physical assault loomed large over my fragile self. But then, it was all worth it, for Preeti had eyes only for me and she made no bones about showing it.

Or so I thought. I even told all in the gym that Preeti was my girl and we intended to elope someday soon, because her parents did not like their daughter to marry a muscle head. I even started looking around for a house where we could stay after marriage. I believed that Preeti would say yes when I proposed, because no woman would dare to openly flirt so much with a man unless she wished to go all the way. Or so I thought.

Then it happened. I always had some kind of protection in the gym from T Rex, but outside, it was a different matter. I was always careful not to run into T Rex on the road. I’d rather if got hit or run over by a car. I was so careful that I would not take off the helmet in a restaurant, while eating. With great difficulty, I would drink my coffee; with greater difficulty, eat my meals and with the greatest difficulty, washed my face and mouth after a meal; all with the helmet on. People would stare at me as though I was a little numb in the head, but I was sure they would do the same if they were chased by a cloned monster that was a cross between a Tyrannosaurus and a human being. He was probably an experiment that went partially wrong; in the process of making a clone that had the brains of a human and the strength of a Tyrannosaurus.

“Sir, why do you always eat with a helmet on your head?” asked the cashier at the hotel, while I was paying the bill.

“Just to make sure that no flies ever flew into my mouth while I opened my mouth to eat”. I answered cryptically.

“Well, you only had to keep your mouth shut instead of clamping your entire head with a helmet, to prevent flies from flying inside”

“Now, if I kept my mouth shut, through which entrance would I push the food in, you silly ass?”

“Oh ohh, okay”. I seemed to have driven the point home.

“Hey you” I shuddered at the sound and turned around. T Rex was standing behind me with an expression that said “What would you like to be written on your tombstone?”

I tried to run past him, but he picked me up like you would a kitten. I twisted and swirled violently causing my helmet, which was not tied tight, to fly off and land on T Rex’s head. His head being bigger and wider, the helmet did not reach all the way down and looked like a roman warrior’s head gear minus the feathers and other paraphernalia. It also covered T Rex’s eyes for a brief moment which gave just enough time to free myself and run for cover. I turned to look back after a few steps and found that T Rex had lost his balance and fallen down on the ground, ramming the helmet hard and tight against his head. He tried to get up, but the fall had the fluid in his ears, cochlea to shake violently, preventing him from being able to stand upright.

This was my great opportunity and I ran back to the hotel and asked the waiter if I could have some pepper. And then, I generously sprinkled the pepper right into the hole provided by the helmet, on to his face and eyes. He uttered sounds very similar to the ones made by lions that were fighting over a kill and every time he tried to get up, I kicked his knees causing him to lose balance. Just so when I was about to knock him down the 48th time, a police jeep pulled up by my side and out jumped a tall officer who was built like Arnold Shwarzenneger but looked like Tom Cruise. Following him out of the jeep was my pretty Preeti, making my eyes shut and open a few million times, faster than the shutter of the fastest camera ever made.

“Hiya Guys. Meet my husband, Godwin I.P.S”.

“You are married?” I finally managed to say as much, as I watched out of the corner of the eye T Rex get up and stand erect with great difficulty. He then, proceeded to pull the helmet off so violently that I thought his head would also come off, still hinged to the helmet.

“Yes, almost two years now. What are you guys doing?”

“Eh…ar…we …”

“He was showing me how easy it was to lose balance if your eyes were covered” T Rex answered with an amiability that left me shaking like that bally leaf I told you about. He then proceeded to put his hand on my shoulder and said,

“Venu dear, would you please give me ride home?”

“Sure, dud…er...dude”

“I like sitting behind a strong man like you, who is so much in control of the bike”.

He then turned around and winked at Preeti, before handing the helmet over to me.

My Alcaponian Self

2009-05-28T20:51:00.000-07:00

It is not everyday that my mother gives me a compliment and when she said I was looking good
with my new hair style, I almost stumbled and fell down. I thought I always looked good, with
hair parted in the middle, combed and pasted tight against the head with coconut oil, which gave
me that 'Al Capone' look. Every now and then, I would go on a crash diet of just eggs, milk and
few slices of bread, which brought in an advent of pimples all over my face, not to mention a few
on my head. This prevented me from pressing my hair tight against the cranium, the style my
mom alluded to,causing it to be wavy and flutter evertime mother nature let out a yawn. Al Capone never had wavy hair, neither did any of his goons, but then you didn't look very tough
and gangster-like if you sported a wavy tuft atop your skull.

Al Capone always was an inspiration to me. I knew everything about him, from the time he was just a teenager looking for a job to the time when he became the top notch hooch seller in Chicago. He had to brave all odds in his quest to brew the best +cooh for the citizens of Chicago
and the effort that went into becoming the best was not lost on me and I worshipped him for that. If ever I wanted to be anything in life, I wanted to be another Alphonse Capone.

Now how do I go about being Alcapone? I did not know how to make hooch..come to think about
it, I couldn't make a lemon juice if I died of thirst. The occasional bru coffee that I made would
wake up the dead", if you asked my mother. I could emulate other attributes of the great guy.
e was a great shooter and a fantastic marksman, and I could miss an elephant if I shot at it from two feet away. He had killed and put away a few people in his time and I, well..I never needed to, in the first place. But I knew there was a killer in me and was determined to take a leaf out of his book .

I knew an oppertunity would present itself someday and I would rise to the occassion. And it did, which shook my Al Caponian self so bad it almost did in my dream to be ...

I was madly in love with a woman named Rose and there wasn't anything in the world that I couldn't do for her. I knew that because there wasn't anything in the world that she did not
make me do. Women were such sensitive creatures that they needed to know how far their man
would go to woo her , which was often a test of patience for your ear drums; clever, smooth and deft manuevering skills vis a vis the topics to avoid and that which caused a lot of agonising mental stress, because you never know if you really passed the test or not. And their sensitivity
would never leave you in doubt how far you could go with your taunts and tests, which wasn't very far by any yardstick. Faltering just once is the end of the road for the relationship and off
she will go to evaluate the skills and patience of another guy and believe me , there are hundreds of men willing to subject themselves to such ordeal and trials. I think all men have an inherent
urge to submit themselves to these torture sessions and even jump themselves overboard in a mad rush to be first to get the treatment.

And I was a seasoned campaigner. I always knew when to say yes and also, never to say no, as it
happened in the story Iam about to narrate. It happened as we were taking a walk down the
museum road to the park nearby, when she suddenly said,

"I don't like the way this guy is staring at me".

It seemed like the time you were in school and the teacher made you constructsentences in an exercise called fill-in-the -blanks. That was as far as she would go to suggest that I teach this guy some manners. Now I wasn't built like Arnold Shwarzennegger nor was I proficient in any martial arts. But then, neither was Alcapone. And yet he knew where to push, to flush the guy crimson red with fear. He had "connections" and that would take care of a lot of things. If I had connections, they would disconnect the moment I asked something of them.

But I had to do something. It was either that or melt in the molten lava of words that would gush
out incessently from her mouth the whole week. The thing with women is that they cared only
for the results and never interfered or confused you with abstract suggestions on how to carry
out their suggestions. And when she says this guy has no manners, it means that he needs to
learn some, with a suble hint that I take over the reins of teaching him some. She will never
prescribe the syllabus nor the method, but will give you all the freedom in the world to do it
your way. "That is my man" she would say when you rise to occassion and successfully complete
the job. You have to admit that men would kill to hear that from a woman.

I turned around to face the guy and gave him one of my meanest, hardest stare. There was a
glint of amusement in his eyes when he saw I was beginning to walk towards him. Rose put
her arm around mine and said something like "don't bother dear, let's ignore this guy and
walk away". But I knew that if I walked away, she would skin me alive with the whiplash of
her tongue, much later during the day. You had to learn to interpret and know when her
'yes' meant 'yes' and when it meant 'no', if you cherished a life with her, that is. I donned my
'Am-all-man' look and said, " hon, this is a man's game. You stay out of this". With misty
eyes and in a voice quivering with reverence, she said ," I understand". Which simply meant
"go beat that guy up and save my face or don't come back to me".

With a heart laden with fear and a face frozen out of terror, I started my slow, staggered walk towards the guy. I had seen Clint Eastwood do this with much effect and read somewhere that that was how tough guys walked when they meant business. To my utter dismay, his amused expression turned into a low chuckle and was joined by three others. That was four chuckles to one pair of feet that buckled. I tried to think how Alcapone would have handled such a situation, before he made connections that made him what he was. Time was running out and I was almost upon them when I heard myself hiss,

" Do you know Bosco Tandon?".

Rose was just so far away that she couldn't hear what was being said. The guys looked stunned. Their amused expression turned into total disbelief . They looked at each other and then at me.

"What if I do?"

"Bosco is my best friend and if any of you rats push it a wee little bit, I am gonna turn him loose
on you."

Bosco Tandon was a ganglord who had earned a name for himself, with a string of fights and
murder attemps to his credit. He lived in the neighbourhood and I had read a lot about him. I also knew from the news papers that Bosco was serving time in prison. I had never seen him in my life and so it was just as well that he was in prison because there was no way any of these guys could check with him. A smile played on my lips as I congratulated myself on the quick thinking and also the freezing effect the word Bosco had on them.

He raised his hand in a gesture of peace and walking backwards, said

"Ok, ok, bud. Now that you mention Bosco...we don't have any problem with you. Din't know you were Bosco's friend".

The guys started to walk away, but there was something about their behaviour that irked my
intelligence or whatever was left of it. I felt drained, probably due to the intelligence drain, but also had a funny feeling these guys were laughing at me though their faces did not betray any such emotion. I was also panting a little bit as relief hit me all over, shaking me from head to toe, as they are wont to. I had expected the worst, to be beaten up blue and black by gang of thugs. Instead I came back thumps up, even threw a scare over those guys and won tons of gratitude from Rose. I turned back to look at her and found her agape with admiration. I walked towards her with air of a man who was used to settling disputes the hard way. Now I knew how Alcapone must have felt all those years, settling disputes, throwing a scare and walking away feeling a winner inside him. I made a note in mind that I had to make this a habit, this art of walking like a winner.

Rose hugged and pressed her head against my chest and was besides herself with emotion.

" Easy girl, moments like this happen everyday in a man's life. When I say men, I mean real men. They couldn't walk away from it, but turn around and face them, like I did today. I had
to meet them head on or something in me dies, baby. Iam sorry if I scared you, lovebug".

"My god, Venu!! You have a nerve walking up to Bosco Tandon and scare him off with a few
words. It was only this morning that I read in the paper that Bosco was let out because the
murder charges against him could not be proved. I took a while recognising him, because the
photo in the paper wasn't that good. Imagine shooing Bosco Tandon off...oh.. you were wonderful,
oooh, that's my man!!..my man!!!".

With all my love...

2009-05-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

What, my mother, is love?

My young one looked up and smiled

I couldn't tell you, my child

But you have it in you

And you feel it always.

I have grown too old

Burdened with fear and loss

Couldn't give in nor open up

Love would mean so

To open up the heart

To invite, to let go, to let sink in

Only you could my child

Love with all thy heart

You could teach me love

For you could cry

And let no demonic ego cast a shadow.

An uninhibited expression, love is.

Born from the heart and soul

Only you could my child

For I have lost touch

With the world and love

If only for a moment I could be you

A soul with no tainted heart

I could embrace you, hold you

With all the love only a child could give

For love is innocence, untouched by knowledge

Pure, virginal and uncorrupted

So teach me, my child, my love

How to love with all the heart

For I wish to cry, drown my burdens

In tears, to feel lighter and young

To take a voyage in the sea of love

So pray teach me, my child

How to love with all my love.

Wayside Dahlia

2009-02-15T08:01:00.000-08:00

"Flower by the way side, the fragrance

Unsavoured, the softness of the petals

Uncaressed, a being so divine, yet so

Unnoticed, but a presence felt and marked

The world be oblivious to its presence

But I, the wind, know and touch

The tangible yet enigmatic soul

For I caress those petals of sweetness

The fragrance I carry and spread

Far and wide, and they say

Oh, wind , come thee and spread

The sweet smell you carry in your bosom

I smile, for they do not know

I have been blessed, by a soul so graceful

She gives me all and I take all the goodness,

The dew she holds on the petals,

The blanket of sweet perfume she dons,

And the honey, but she only smiles

Gives me more and to everyone, who

Care to visit, and dine with her

I spread the gifts far and wide

And they say, come thee, Oh sweet cool breeze

Fill my home and drive away the

Wrath of drought, and I smile

For I know, the cool breeze that is I,

Am blessed by a soul who send with me

The cool dew drops I carry on me

If only they looked, if only they would listen

They would know you, my Pretty

A being so divine, so lovely and so pure

So virginal, yet pregnant with love and affection"

"BEHIND" THE STORY...

2009-02-08T06:04:00.000-08:00

I never go to the temple wearing pants or jeans but always
wear the traditional 'mundu' and wear no shirt either. It is
not that you are not allowed to don the shirt, but to enter
the sanctum sanctorum, you have to be shirtless and no
vest or shawl over or around your torso is allowed either.
Simply put, the 'mundu' is just long white sheet of fine cloth
which you wrap around your waist and hope it will stay there.

I have seen people wearing 'mundu' and do all sorts of things
like run around, jump, climb up trees and no matter what
they do, the mundu stays wrapped to the waist. And I....all
I have to do is say 'jack' loudly and the mundu falls down to
my feet, leaving my "you-know-where" exposed to the
weather and other elements, not to mention becoming the
butt of jokes. It is not everyday that someone shows off
his butt in such a carefree manner to anyone and Iam no
Jayabharathi or Sheela [ the famous film actors] to be
endowed and gifted with ..er..you-know-what and so people
do not take to it very kindly if they suddenly find me clad
only in something that covers barely 1/100 th of my physical
presence. And this is one of those times when the brand
name of the piece of cloth with an elastic bandage does not
impress anyone either.

Needless to say, Iam always alert to this danger of my
mundu falling off, whether it be at the temple or at home,
where I wear my dhoti, a very colourful version of the
mundu. To think I have worn mundu almost all my life,
since the time I was about fourteen or fifteen years old...

In public and at the temple, my movements are therefore
conducted very gently, with no sudden or jerking movements,
as though Iam playing everything in slow motion. Whatever
I do, one of my hands stay around the waist line....just in
case....The only time both hands come up together is when
I bow before God with folded hands. That is a very tense
moment for me, what with so many women and men standing
in front and behind me, I could cut up a very silly figure if ,
all of a sudden, women open up their eyes to look at God and
find me standing before them wearing something that could
embarass the living daylights out of the Deity himself.

This incident happened a few years back, during which time,
I was the treasurer of the Temple festival committee. It
required me to visit every single house in the neighbourhood
to ask for donations for the temple festival and something
that requires me to walk a lot. Yes, ofcourse, I wear a mundu
then, because, everyone else with me wears it too.

"Venu, why do always walk with your left hand to the hips?
Does it hurt your hips to walk?"

"No, but it will, if I don't"

"What do you mean..it will if you don't?"

"It will hurt if I don't"

"That is what I asked you whether it will hurt if you don't
put your hands to the hips and you said no, it will hurt.
What does that mean ?"

It was very embarrassing even to explain it and so I let
it go at that. How could I bring myself to tell anyone
that I would end up looking like Arnold Shwarzenegger
in Conan The Barbarian, if I let go of my grip on the mundu?.

"You walk like Arnold Shwarzenegger in Conan The Barbarian
, with his hands to the hips, only he was not wearing a mundu
in the movie". Said one of my friends.

"Why don't you go in this house and I to the next house,
as there is only one young lady staying there. We can
finish our business faster that way."

The three of us parted ways to move into two houses
opposite to each other. It was one of those old houses
with lots of space at the front yard, tiled roofed and
with about seven or eight steps leading to the sit-out.
The sloping roof was so low at the verandha that your
head could hit the ceiling if you weren't careful.

The gate adorned a big white board which said "DOGS ON
GUARD. ENTER AT YOUR RISK". I leaned over the gate
to look for dogs and did not see any. So I pressed the calling
bell on the wall and waited for the dogs to rush up to the gate.

Still no sign of the dogs.

"Yuhoo...doggie..doggie" I wailed at the top of my voice, my
neck craning over the compound wall to guide and send all my
voice and noise into the house. No dogs.

I opened the gate gently. I explained earlier about my gentleness,
but now I was more gentle than I usually was, what with this
confounded terrible wind threatening to blow my mundu off
my hips and the fear of having to explode into a fast dash if the
dogs rushed at me, were playing in my mind. Again, no dogs
around.

Now I knew what this was all about. It was only a single young
working woman staying in the house who did not have the time
to look after dogs, but still put up the sign board about dogs just
so it would deter potential robbers and other intruders from
trying anything funny. I walked confidently into the house and
a long walk it was. I realized that if the dogs rushed at me now,
I would not make it to the gate. But I was reasonably sure there
were no dogs and pressed the calling bell at the door and this time
I pressed the bell a little too long.

The sound of the bell seemed like a bird, suffering from 'piles',
screeching in agony while attending to a call of nature. Worse
still, was the sound of dogs barking as they rushed to the front
door. Trembling with fear, I realized that I had not heard the
sound of the calling bell, at the gate, when I pressed it. It was
probably out of order, which was why the dogs did not come to
the gate. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw two huge
dobermann pinshers coming round the house, rushing towards
the verandha.

There was only one thing to do, reach up with my hands, hang
on to the wooden beam of the roof and swing my body up to the
roof. All these years of working out at the gym had physically
prepared me for such an eventuality..... I could raise my body
on my hands and raise my hips and legs too, to the level of my
head. I proceeded to do precisely that.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. MY MUNDU WAS COMING
OFF FROM THE WAIST.

One of the dogs grabbed the mundu which had fallen on the
floor, tugged at it in a fit of anger and ran away with it while
the other dog tried to jump up and bite my plump ..er..cheeks.
I pulled myself higher and stretched my legs as high as possible.
Then the dog thought it would be better if he could jump up
and grab my shirt, which was flailing high because of the wind.

THAT WAS WHEN THE NEXT WORST THING HAPPENED.

I looked like I was wearing no shirt and my mundu had become a
thousand small handkerchiefs [thanks to the dog] and my legs
were raised, spread and pointed to the front door. The door
opened and a beautiful woman stepped out into the verandha.

She took one long deep look at me, so long it took that I almost
asked. "Hey babe, you never seen a naked human being before?".

Now I wasn't exactly a bad looking sort. I have had people tell
me many a times that I looked like Jean Claude Vadamme and
there were some incidents that happened which made me think
that perhaps I was something of a "sex object" too. I mean,
what else do you make of it, when women object when you talk
about sex to them? But she seemed to ignore all those finer points.

She screamed at the top of her voice which made me release my
grip from the roof. I landed heavily on the dog's head, which was
on its way up and needless to say, it received quite a jolting butt
on the nose. Yelping loudly, the dog disappeared into the
backyard of the house. I jumped up in an instant and ran into
the house through the open door, followed by the lady screaming
more loudly than she did previously. I hope you realize why I
did not run out of the house and compound, but ran inside. In
case you haven't guessed.... you don't walk on the streets wearing
almost nothing and also the other dog was still ferociously
attacking my mundu.

The whole commotion had attracted the attention of my friends
who had gone into the neighbour's house and they came out, to
see me run into the house with the lady.

"Boy, this guy sure is a fast worker. Five minutes back, he
did not even know this lady in that house and now he is
rushing to the bedroom and can't even wait until he reached
the bed room to take his clothes off".

What happened inside the house and the version my friends
give are very different. I had a tough time explaining to her
why I looked like what I did and finally when I came out of
the house, I was wearing her nightie, which was all she could
give me. She stayed alone and there were no shirts or T shirts
or jeans that would fit my size. My friends gaped at me with
open mouths, their eyes glittering with admiration as I walked
out of the house, with a woman who looked very amused and
was still chuckling [ after she heard my story]. In their eyes,
she looked very happy and smiling with contentment and they
spread this story that I, in a hurry to meet my friends before
they finished their business in the other house, I mistook and
wore her nightie on my way out of the house.

I still wear mundu to the temple and weddings, but with an
added aid to help bolster mundu securely around the waist.
A small thin tough white thread.

"Always tie this thread over the mundu and around your waist.
No one will notice it. It may also come in handy if such an incident
happens again in your life." She told me.

"In what other way can this thread be useful?"

"If something like this happens ever again, you can use
this thread to hang yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if
it happened again".

Ode to my boy

2009-01-18T02:19:00.000-08:00

The rain thrashes the earth with a vengence
A distant sound of thunder augments its fury
The fury of the rain, an echo of my passion
I lie on the bed, my mind and soul tilled,
By a myriad of stinging, sharp memories
Memories of times so sweet often visit, flooding
My eyes with tears, and a bitter rage throng at the temple
A fury never abated, never relenting in its torment of the heart

I know I must face tomorrow, all alone and without support
A void exists where a passion ruled, that was you
You woke up everyday with a sweet smile,
A smile that lit the lamp of my life, every day
I couldn't wait too long if you came home late
Bizarre thoughts start to haunt my mind
I couldn't bear it if you wanted to be away
And yet you are gone..I wouldn't see you in a long time
Unless you so wished, a faint hope still exists

You turned back to look many a times
Your eyes said it all, you wished me to be with you
You couldn't know, my boy, you are only a child
That we couldn't ever be together, your mother and I
But my heart would always be, where you are
And my soul would know if you cried
Sometimes on a drunken stupor, I see you
I wrestle with you, you chase me with a pillow
I fall down and we laugh together
And those times when you wouldn't eat
I had to beg and plead and promise a gift
Yes, you were a pain, my son, that was you
A sweet, sweet pain, so overwhelming

I cannot fathom another day, without you
How I pulled on all these days, I couldn't tell
Now and then, I wake up in the night
I would turn around to look for you
The emptiness that envelops the room
Laugh at my misery and my aching mind
How I miss you, my boy, if only you knew
You would forget, you are only a child
Wounds heal faster and memories fade into oblivion
You would start anew, every day would be new and fresh
To an old man, everyday is just one more bundle of dreams
Dreams shattered and of hopes renewed

If I would live another day ; if I could, in my power
I would win you back and we would fight,
We would wrestle and chase each other
We would play with the dogs and cats
We would climb up the trees and jump down
And cycle down the mud path road to the river
Swim and frolick, like two good friends
If only tomorrow would make a miracle happen
Until then, incarcerated I will be, in my cage of memories
Of you, my boy and of our times together

Sherlock Holmes of Vadakkancheri

2009-01-11T02:36:00.000-08:00

"Elementary, my dear Watson...er..Muscilesh", I was explaining
to sub-inspector Muscilesh and constable Savitha why I thought
the case of a man who died of eight stab wounds in the back, was
suicide and not murder. I am Venugopal Unnikrishnan, better
known as Sherlock Holmes of Vadakancheri, which also happens
to be my home town.

"How could a man stab himself eight times in the back?

I don't think it was suicide." "It is really very simple,
Savitha. Now what would you do if I pinched your back?"

"I would turn around and kick your nuts out of its wrinkled
socket."

Muscilesh " ha ha. Then no one would ever call you nuts
again, he heh"

Savitha " And that is putting things in a nutshell"

"what did you say you would do, Savitha?"

" Turn around and kick your nuts"

" Exactly. What did you say before "kick your nuts"?

"And"

"No, before "and"

"Turn around"

"Now , what would happen if I turned around when someone
was stabbing me in the back?, I would get stabbed on the
front side too. In this case, he was not stabbed in the front.
So what does that mean?"

Muscilesh , "He was stabbed only in the back?"

"And..?"

"he died"

"Of course, he died, you idiot. What does that prove?"

"He died of stab wounds".

"And what else"

"Let me think..."

"It means he did not turn around when he was being stabbed,
which he normally should have done. So it was probably
suicide"

"Why do you think he stabbed his back eight times to
commit suicide, when he could have had the same effect
by stabbing in the front side?"

"That is what we have to find out"

This man had owned a hardware store and he was found
lying dead in his own storehouse. This case was going to
be difficult to prove. There was no way this man could
have been murdered. All the evidence pointed to it.
But how does one stab himself eight times on his back,
unless he fixed eight knives on the wall and crashed into
them. Also Savitha made an important point. Why didn't
stab himself in the front if he wanted to die?

I remember a similar case where a man died of being hit
on the head with a coconut. It was also a suicide. He
had climbed up the tree, cut down a few coconuts and
then left a few half cut. Then he climbed down and simply
waited for the coconuts to fall on their own, which it did
after a few days. And one of them fell on the waiting
man's head and he died instantly. From experience I
knew people chose funny ways of committing suicide.

I also had a reputation of proving all my cases very fast
and make them look so easy.

A big crowd had gathered near the shop and as I stepped
out, they looked at me with so anticipation and admiration
that I felt I had to do something to make them keep on
admiring me.

I motioned one of the people who had gathered to come
near me. He walked over towards me with the air of a
man who had absolutely no fear of police. I had to do
something about that as well.

"What is your name?"

"Why do you want to know my name?"

"Tell me your name"

"Why?"

"That is a very funny name".

I guffawed loudly and looked around to see who else
joined me. I usually had to laugh first at my own wit
and humour. This was sometmes necessary to encourage
people to laugh with me. Most often, people did not
recognise good humour and you had to prompt them
to laugh every so often so that in future they would laugh
loudly if they heard the same joke again.

The young man also laughed which was vaguely irritating.
I normally did not like the victim of my jokes to laugh with
me. But I chose to make this an exception as he was the
only one who laughed at my joke. If I reprimanded him,
others might take it as a cue, not to laugh at my jokes and
I did not want that. But I had to do something to put down
his insolence and I wasn't called Sherlock Holmes of
Vadakkancheri for nothing.

"Where were you when this man died?"

" Does that matter? I heard you say it was suicide.
So why try to find out where I was?"

This man was beginning to bug me. The crowd was also
warming up to this trial of sorts and watching very intently.
I had to do something to get on top of the situation.

"Did you know this man personally?"

"I didn't know you could know anyone impersonally?"

"Listen boy and listen hard. Smart, I like; smartass, I don't"

"And listen Sherly and listen good. I don't care who you are
and what you do. But you are wasting my time here. Iam
the district collector who stopped on the way to office, to
see what the crowd was all about. If you have any more
questions to ask me, come to my office and I will be glad
to oblige you."

Have you ever stepped on banana peel and fell down?
Your hands fly in the
air to maintain balance , your legs simply collapse under you,
your face contorts in unimaginable ways and a myriad of
comical expressions appear on your face in a flash, before
a horrified look takes over as you realize that you are going to
land with a heavy thud. It is only when you get up that you
do some face saving exercises which may come out even
more comical than the ones you portrayed on your face,
on your way to the crashing episode. This was exactly
what happened to me when I realized that I was questioning
the person who had the powers of a district magistrate.
Not only did I slip and fall, but made a donkey of myself
in the process.

" Iam sorry, sir. I did not know that you were the collector
of the district..I mean..er..district collection agent..er district
collector. I only hoped to extract some information
on the murder that happened here"

"But I thought you said it was suicide".

"It was a suicide, sir"

"Then why do you call it murder?"

"Sir, it is a murder committed by the man on himself during
which process he died". My face saving exercises were
in full swing.

"How do you know it is suicide and not murder?"

"He was stabbed only in the back, sir"

"Since he was stabbed only in the back, it was not
murder..eh? That is a very stupid explanation"

"Sir , if I pinched Savitha in the back, she would turn
around and kick my nuts. This man did not turn
around and so it is suicide."

"WHAT!!!???"

"Sir, I asked Savitha if I be allowed to pinch her back
and she said if I did that she would kick my nuts out.
She also said she would turn around first. But this man
did not turn around. Sir, if I pinched your bottom........"

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!".

"But if I did, you would turn around, wouldn't you?"

"Tell me something, Sherly of Vada. Are you nuts?"

"No sir, Iam not nuts. Just now, Muscilesh also told
me no one is going to call me nuts if Savitha kicked my nuts"

"Jeeeeezz!!! What the heck are you talking about?"

"Sir, it is like this. If I pinched Savitha in the back, she
would turn around and kick my nuts out of its wrinkled
socket. Now if I did not have them, I couldn't be called
nuts. That is what Muscilesh told me . And that is how
Savitha put it in the nutshell".

"Oh God! Either I have gone nuts or Iam missing something"

"You only missed that part where Savitha steps up to
kick, sir. But that was after she turned around first"

"Let me see the body first and you step aside. Don't walk
with me and talk to me as I wish to remain sane the rest
of the day".

I walked with him anyway. These kids may be collectors
of the district, but they were also wet behind the ears and
you had to be around to lend a helping hand or necessary
advise. It was so exasperating explaining to this guy.
It was a different matter if he did not like to be pinched,
but the point was that he would turn around if pinched
and the dead man did not turn around. It was as simple as that.

I also needed to stop this guy from calling me Sherly. It
was really annoying to hear that name uttered in the most
irreverent way possible. Here I was, the one and
only Sherlock Holmes, having to act so subservient to a
person who was much younger in age and of course did
not match my intellectual taxidermy. In fact, I would
have loved it very much if he, in the end, said something
like, " Sir, it was a great honour meeting you".

I was determined work this to perfection when.....

"why are you called Sherlock Holmes anyway?"

"Sir, I had proved certain cases which were hitherto
uncrackable. The most famous of them being the
'mystery of the lost diamond ring'. It was that which
earned me this name".

"Tell me about it"

"The Royal family of south vadakancheri always held
me in high esteem and I was not surprised when they
asked to me come over and find the missing diamond
ring of the erstwhile raja. And I proceeded to do so
within a few minutes"

"How did you do that?"

"Sir the Raja had misplaced it and thought one of the
servants may have taken it. I asked him a few questions
like the name of the person he suspected, when he realized
that the ring was missing etc. He told me that the ring
had become very loose on the finger and normally he
was wont to remove the ring and put it on the left hand,
before eating breakfast. That day, after the breakfast,
he checked his left hand and the ring was not there.
I asked a few sharp questions and then the last question
produced results".

"What was the question?"

" I asked him if he checked his right hand. And lo! the
ring was on his right hand. He had simply forgotten
to remove the ring from his right hand while eating and
thankfully it did not end up in his stomach".

" I do not think you will get lucky today."

"It wasn't luck, sir. It was all calculated and carefully
thought out questions from a sharp mind, that did the
trick. In this case too, if only you will let me demonstrate
something by letting me pinch..."..

"YOU WILL NOT PINCH MY BOTTOM!!!"

"Yes sir, I mean..no sir"

"Who broke open this front door?"

"The police, sir. It was locked from inside and there
were no other doors. Despite repeated pleas and requests,
this man would not open the door. He couldn't open the
door because he was dead. So we had to break it open
to get inside".

"What is this stuff that is spilled here?"

"Oil, sir"

"Is that a knife stand with eight knives, with blood
stains on it, on the floor?"

"Blood stains? I thought it was painted red."

"Now look at this, Sherly. You see those marks on the
floor where someone seems to have slipped and fell.
This man probably slipped on spilled oil and fell on the
stack of knives. This is a godown and store where no one can
enter except from the front door and it was locked from
inside. It goes on to prove that this man died of a freakish
accident and it is not murder".

"Exactly as I said sir. I knew it was not murder all the while.
As I had been telling constable Savitha, it was impossible
to think it was murder. If it had been murder, he would
have turned around like Savitha had turned around first........."

A Marriage Proposal

2008-12-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

It never fails to happen. They have to wake me up when I am sleeping. Of course, you can wake someone up only when he is sleeping, I mean how can you wake someone up if he is not sleeping, unless of course, you thought he was sleeping and he wasn't actually sleeping but pretended to be sleeping. Iam trying to say it is just that I never get the full run of my sleep.

This time it sounded as though they were celebrating Christmas eve in my bed room. Personally, I have nothing against Santa Claus and his army of singers who turn up every chritmas night, but I resent it very much if he sits on my stomach to say Merry Christmas. I woke up wearily, tried to shove off Mr.Claus from my stomach and to my surprise, it was not santa, but my nephew who was on the belly and he was hollering at the top of his voice asking me to wake up.

"What is the matter? It is only 9.30. What is wrong?"

"Did you forget what day it is? You are going to your would-be-wife's house today. Wake up and get ready. We have to be there by 11am." That was my sister who had come down from Bangalore, for this ceremony.

How could I forget what day it was? I was thinking of her all night. I was singing to her too,"tere bina zindagi se koi" and running around all those bushes, shrubs and trees. P.S. That is how you go about wooing a woman. You sing and prance about the trees & shrubs and roll over grass and generally appraise the girl of your physical prowess to dance to her tune, in future. And my back was aching like hell. The thing about dreams...they disappear off into the void but leave you a little tired and sleepy in the morning.

"WAAAKKKE UUUPPP!!!!" Now it was my sister's turn to shout.

It never ceases to amaze me that almost everyone shouts at me for something or the other. It is not that Iam deaf, but they kinda feel that they have to shout at me for those things to register in my head. About a week back, my house was burgled and these guys took just about everything from the house, except the TV. May be they couldn't take the TV because I was watching some programme on it, but the point is that I got screamed at by everyone in the house for it. What if I wasn't watching the TV...they would have taken TV away too. It is so difficult to drive some sense into their head when they are in the shouting mode.

I passed by my dad's room, on my way to the kitchen for a coffee. My mom was there too. They seemed very worried.

" What if he says something stupid? If this marriage proposal does not result in marriage, I do not think anything else will. The marriage broker told me that this would be last time he would bring an alliance proposal for Venu." My dad seemed very angry and upset too.

I smiled knowingly. I knew what I was going to do and I knew it would work. This girl was destined to be my wife. The previous proposals were but warm ups to the present one and I was oozing confidence from all the pores. I was still oozing when....

"Do you have to drool so much for a coffee?" Now it was my servant's turn to shout.

For some strange reason, my sis refused to come with to the girl's house. Neither did my parents. That did not bother me. They would have made me so self conscious, especially when I really opened up to talk, with their piercing glances which had the effect of a restraining order from the civil court of law.

I parked the car about fifty meters away from the girl's house. The marriage broker ,the only person to join me, and myself stepped out and walked towards the house.. No sooner had we reached the gate when he glanced back and motioned me to do the same.

A cop was standing next to my car and did what seemed like pasting something on my window pane. I rushed up to the cop and almost snatched what looked like a small slip of paper, which looked like a cash receipt. But my eyes ballooned out and my heart did a somersault when I saw what was being pasted on the window pane. It read "PARKING FINE". I was so touched and overwhelmed by this rare show of courtsey by a policeman. I mean.... how would you react if a cop walked upto you and said, " Sir, your parking is just fine". It is not everyday, policemen do such things for you. And this particular cop even showed the courtsey to stick a compliment on my car. With tears in my eyes, I shook his hand vigorously and showered a volley of
thanks.

He looked at me the way you would look at the mosquito you are about to swat. His eyes opened up wide for a second and narrowed down to slits as though he was focussing on some point on my face . I was not in the least bit surprised These cops are not used to encouraging words and probably thought I was pulling his leg.. That was when the marriage broker interfered and
indicated with his hands that the cop would be shot if he tried something violent. He simply raised his hand, pointed at me and then pointed the finger on his own head and tapped gently thrice and the cop got the message. I liked the fellow, even if he occasionally shouted at me and called me names.

The girl's brothers were at the gate to receive us. They were two big guys and one them shook my hand so violently that I thought it would come off at the should joint and the other one squeezed them so tight, my fingers became webbed like a duck's feet. The broker had filled me in on the details of the girl's family. Her father served in the army and was no more. The brothers were state wrestling champions.

She was a petite beauty. I had gathered from the photo that she was beautiful, but I had not counted on such remarkably beautiful looks. All the dialogues I had prepared seemed not to come to my mouth, but stopped at the entrance, giving a choked and congested feeling in the chest and left my mouth open and agape. I knew I had to say something so as not to look stupid.

"Brrr..." Couldn't say I didn't try.

My mouth had gone completely dry, in fact so dry, my tongue was stuck in its groove and refused to move.

I looked around to see something on which I could strike up a conversation. There was the photo of a man, in military uniform, hanging froim the wall. There was something vaguely familiar about this guy and but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Finally I broke the impasse. and pointed to the photo on the wall and asked her.

" Was your dad in the army for a long time?"

Have you poured water on the floor and watched it slowly slither all over the place. You can hardly see it move, but it is so smooth that before you knew it, the water was all over the place. The same thing happened with a ghostly silence that decended on all of us. It came down from the skies, crept into room and pervaded every nook and corner of the house. It was so silent that you could hear an ant clear its throat a mile away.

The girl and the brothers were staring at me the way you would look at Laloo Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi, if they communicated with each other in dutch. It was like they couldn't believe what they were hearing.

The broker got up and hissed.

"Let's go"

"What do you mean let's go?"

"Listen, you dimwit. I have half a mind to kick you in the face and don't make me do it."

I knew he would from the way he looked and I was positive that if he didn't , the brothers would. We slithered out of the house and the compound.

"What did I do?".

"I don't want to say it twice and so you can listen to it when I talk to your dad about it."

And so we reached home and dad.

"your son did it again".

"What did he did again..I mean..do again?" My dad was as confused as I was.

"He asked the girl if her father was in army"

"What is wrong with that? He was in the army".

"But he was not the father"

"Brrrr....." Yes, as you probably guessed, it was me alright.

"What do you mean he was not the father?"

"Your son pointed out to a photo and asked her if her father was in the army. That was not her father."

"What is wrong with that? Anybody could make that mistake."

"No, nobody else could make this mistake except this nitwit"

"Don't call my son that. Pls clarify"

" I mean only this fruit cake of your son would point out to Nethaji Subhash Chandra Bose's photo and say a thing like that"

Trouble is my middle name. It is that or I don't know what it is..

2008-11-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

As it always does, this phone starts to ring when I was sleeping . It would seem that people checked with each other to find out if I was sleeping and deliberately woke me up the moment I dozed off after a hard day. How would you like it if you were shaken out of your reverie by the squealing of a phone, when you just about closed your eyes after about half an hour of scraping, rubbing, twitching and tossing in the bed. Needless to say to say, I was mad and almost smashed the phone on my head. Slamming the phone on your heads is helpful in two ways....1] it stops the bally thing from screaming and 2] for the anesthetic effect of a solid blow on the head leaves you out cold for a few hours.

I picked up the phone and muttered wearly,

"Hello? "

"Govinda raj"

"No, this is Venu raj, I mean Venugopal"

"I know that. And that is why I dialled your number, you idiot."

"Then don't call me Govinda raj. Call me Venu, if you don't mind."

"Eda, this is Govinda raj. I am back in trivandrum."

Jeeeeeezzzz, it was Govindan. And nobody warned me that he was in town.

" I called Cherian and he told me he was in a conference and may not be able to get out for the next two days. Said he would call me as soon as he could, that is, if he ever could. And Hrishi told me he was suffering from arthritis of the tongue and may not be able to speak for a few days. He promised to get back as soon as he was able to speak. Speak legibly, that is".

Which left me at his mercy for the next few days until he left town. Every time Govinda raj came down to trivandrum for a holiday, we would all get together, have a few round of drinks and get into some trouble. It never failed to happen. It had become such a regular feature of our meetings that everyone fled out of town at the mention of Govindan's name. I had to do some quick thinking and came up with,

"Hi Govinda, good to hear from you. Iam driving my car, reached Kollam, on my way to Kollappuzha, I mean Alappuzha. Don't know when I am going to get back. Will call you when I do. Bye".

"Why are you going to Kollappuzha..er ..Alappuzha?"

"My niece is getting married"

"You mean, your sister's daughter?"

" I couldn't call my sister's son my niece, now, could I?"

"You have only one sister, right?"

"That is what my father told me and it has never occurred to me that he lied to me."

"The last time I came down, she had only two sons. Now, in two years, she has not only had a daughter but she is getting married as welll, eh?"

I swallowed a few gallons of air and let out a long breath. It took me a while to empty myself of all that gas, and in the meanwhile I did some slow thinking as well, since the quick thinking I did earlier did not produce the desired results.

"He, he heh", My thinking was real slow.

"You sound like a donkey going hee haw, hee haw. Why, you even behave like one. Iam standing right outside your house from where I can see your car, which you said you were driving, in the carshed. I have seen technology progress a lot, but I never thought I would see a man drive his car and the car still stay in the same place. In your case, the carshed."

"He heh". It was still so slow that you would think I wasn't thinking at all

"Now come out and open the door. "

"I have two cars. And Iam not driving the car that is parked in the carshed, because that is parked in the carshed. Iam driving the car that Iam driving..I mean..I am driving the car that Iam driving and not the car that is parked in the carshed, because it is parked in the carshed. And my sister is not my sister..I mean..my sister is my sister..er..she is my cousin sister."

My thinking was beginning to work, still a little slow though, but working alright.

"Ok, I believe you. Just wanted to know if you all would like to go for a boat ride which I have arranged. I also have brought 3 bottles of J & B whiskey".

He might have said he brought three bottles of trouble with him. The trouble with a person like me who flirts with and dates trouble in his free time, is that trouble may not look like trouble at all. Three bottles of J & B was too tempting to let go.

"I shall ring up others and let you know when we can all get to meet".

Two days later, we all met up. My car had developed some trouble and I had to borrow Hrishi's bike to get to rendezvous. I also had a few errands to do, one of which book some tickets for a movie for parents and two cousins who had come down to visit them and also their return tickets by train.

So after dropping Hrishi with Govindan and Cherian, I took the long ride to the railway station to book tickets for my cousins. Inspite of Hrishi's warning, I had consumed a few rounds of J & B just so my bike ride too and fro would be smooth and enjoyable. After booking the tickets at the railway station, I rode off to the movie theatre to book tickets. So far, so good.

Coming out of the theatre, I noticed something wrong with the bike. It had ceased to look familiar. I wasn't very sure if it was the drinks that did it but as a man who was capable of both slow and quick thinking, I was not going to be flustered by such trivia. I got on to my quick thinking mode and I phoned Hrishi and checked the bike number. My eyes were not deceiving me. This was not Hrishi's bike.

It seemed like someone had left his bike there and took Hrishi's instead. I immediately switched to slow thinking mode and considered whether to go to the police. Slowly it dawned on me,[ a phenomenon associated with slow thinking, i.e., things dawn on you only a little slowly] to report the matter to the police. They came along with me to the movie theatre and took the bike in and now, my quick thinking told me that it was only a matter of time before police nabbed the guy who took Hrishi's bike.

And I joined up with the rest of the gang and wow!! we had a whale of a time. We were so drunk that getting home was posing to be a big problem. I swung back and forth from slow to quick thinking, but to no avail. I had forgotten where my house was. I knew it was somewhere in PTP Nagar. We drove around the colony a few times and still no sign of my house. Finally, we decided to ask someone if he knew where I was staying.

"Excuse me, Sir. Would you, by any chance, know where the house of this guy named Venugopal Unnikrishnan is ?"

"Venugopal Unnikrishnan?"

"Yes..Unugopal Annikrishn...I mean. Venugopal Unnikrishnan".

"What does he do?"

"You mean, right now?"

"No, where does he work?"

I had forgotten that too. Now I was suffering from arthritis of the brain. No such thing as slow or quick thinking happened. In fact, I couldn't think at all. But that kind person could understand the dilema I was in.

"Could you pls tell me what this..Unugop...er..Venugopal Unnikrishnan looks like?"

This time my quick thinking side of my brain answered so quickly that I could actually hear myself say it again.

"He looks like me."

"In fact, he looks exactly like him", Chipped in Hrishi.

And that is when jeep full of policemen drove up. They came straight to the point.

"Are you the mutt that filed the complaint about someone mistakenly taking your bike away?"

"Yes Sir, that was me".

"Did you go to the railway station for something?"

"Yes, I did".

"You drunken fleabag!! You left your bike at the railway station and took someone else bike from there, rode it up to the movie theatre. Coming out of the theatre, you thought someone had mistakenly taken your bike and filed a complaint with us. Now, we are taking you in for drunken driving and stealing someone else's bike".

I looked around for help. Govindan, Hrishi and Cherian were nowhere to be seen and disappeared into the void. It was that or I had gone blind.

I spent next two days at the police station, until the other guy, whose bike I had whisked away, under the influence of whiskey withdrew the police case.

I have not seen Govindan since then. I heard from Hrishi, that he took the next flight back to USA and Hrishi and Cherian still haven't stopped talking and laughing about it.

A Rasputin Of Sorts...

2008-11-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

Those good old days, when I used to go to the gymnasium will not happen anymore. It is all over and done with. The present generation do not have what it takes to be a true gym rat. Couldn't blame them, 'cause going to the gym is not any like going to a club or the stadium where you played those which have so much glitz and glamour..games like cricket and tennis.

In my young days gymnasium was a place visited by the thugs, hoodlums and certainly not for anyone from a decent family background. It was a place where trouble courted, married and made love to vandalism. Anyone from a good family was not supposed to workout in a gym. Why should they, when there were more interesting and entertaining sports and games like shuttle, cricket, tennis, where you could meet up with the rich and the upperclass?

It was precisely in those settings and backdrop that I decided to join a gymnasium. My mother never knew about it until I started packing on some muscles on my 51 kg of bones and skin. If my mother and family were not ready to accept that fact, it was worse at the gymnasium. I was something the cat brought in. It was a place akin to big junction in a city, where there was a traffic block created by a few huge trucks. Big, tall guys "hung" about silently, everywhere, like ships marooned in cochin harbour. And I pranced, weaved and bobbed out of the way like a lifebuoy thrown carelessly into the water. Those guys were huge and I was a wimp, who muttered thanks to everyone who did not knock me down or trampled over me. "Hey boy, roll that 3 kg dumbell over to me. Don't try to pick it up, it could be too heavy for you. Just push it hard in my direction...yeah ..attaboy!!"

I wasn't going to take this any longer. I was going to get big and strong like those guys. It took me about two years of hardwork, a lot of heaving and puffing to get to be about 75 kg and then I thought I had learned enough to set up my own gymnasium.

And that was when this interesting incident happened.

The first person ever to join my gym was a girl. May be it was just that 75 kg of muscle was not very impressive looking or it was just that I dint have the steel in my eyes to be a true bodybuilder..but she seemed very relaxed in my presence when she said, " I would like to join your gymnasium". I had known this girl for sometime , a pretty little thing, from a well to do family and I wondered what she was doing here in my gym. My eyes flexed its muscles and swelled up in size, everytime I ran into her on the road. I would also suck in all the available oxygen in the neighbourhood and my hands would jump to the side, about a foot from the body and stay that way, as though somebody stuck a hot charcoal under my armpits, everytime her eyes met mine. And I would walk upto her [ and walk past her] like a big bull walking upto a cow. My eyes would lock onto hers and say," Babe, you must be very tired because you have been running in my mind all day long.". She was also something of a choking pain, akin to a chest congestion, in the heart of every guy in the vicinity. And here she was, wanting to join up my gym. I almost jumped up with joy, but all the laden weight of the oxygen I had just sucked in, anchored me to earth.

" I have a black belt in karate and my instructor said I had to build some more strength in the arms and legs, which is why Iam here and Iam willing work very hard, as hard as you can push me to achieve my goal." She told me. This was my golden chance to show off what I was really made of. I would run around the house for a few minutes, work up a good sweat and by the time she arrived at the gym, I would load as much weight on the bar and stand next to it as though I had just finished my workout. "Boy! you are so strong. You are so humble not to show off your strength and muscles wearing those tight T shirts". I did not tell her that if I had bulging muscles on my shoulder and chest, I wouldn't wear a shirt, ever. But she was very impressed. In fact, so impressed with me was she, that she brought in two of her friends to join up at the gym, a few days later. If she was beautiful, the other two were stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. I say, breathtaking, because I remember gasping for breath every time one of them just as much as looked at me. I found there wasn't enough oxygen for me suck in, in the gym, anymore. I was using it up like anything. " We would like to be trained the same way you train our friend" said one of them in a voice that had the effect of a cool, soothing breeze kissing my violently pounding heart. "Ok." I answered in a voice that resembled the sound of a buffalo clearing its throat.

My gym was an old, unused car shed, which had an entrance from the road and another from the house. The girls used come in from the entrance in the house. For the first two months since I started the gym, there was almost nobodyelse who joined except these girls. But what I did not know was that I was attracting the attention of the entire neighbours and even become something of a hero in their midst. It happened like this. Usually the girl who joined first, would drop by and the neighbours would see her go into the car shed. They did not know it was a gym inside, but they would see the girl coming out drenched in sweat and too weak to walk. They would also hear cries like " Venu, pls stop, I can't do it any more. No, not today...Oooh, Iam so tired, but it feels good". About half an hour later, the other beauts would sneak into the carshed and come out looking like they fell into a washing machine running at top speed. All the while, I, would go in and out the carshed without just as much as a wrinkle on my shirt. And they would say," this guy is an animal. Some kind of rasputin. Look at him!! three girls in a row and he is not even sweating. And those girls look like they have been raped by a whirlwind."

One day there was a big crash and a thudding noise outside road entrance to the gym. I rushed out to see what was happening and lo! there was another crashing sound and something heavy fell on me. It was my neighbour, a teenager, who had fallen from the roof of the car shed. And there were more, three more to be precise, on the roof. All had a certain sheepish smile on the face which resembled the grin of a monkey that bit into banana and found out that it was made of plastic. "We thought..er..ah..he..heh..". The girls had no clue as to what had happened, but I couldn't help but smile at the funny turn of events.

So many years have gone by since this incident had happened but whenever I bumped into any of those guys on the road, they would look down or the other way and avoid me altogether. And I couldn't help but break into a chuckle and wonder what those kids might have discussed about me until they found out what was happening in the car shed.

"O ba ma Gawd, it's Obama

2008-11-09T08:38:00.000-08:00

Obama is the new president of the United States of America. Can you believe that? It was only a few years back, Bush wanted to get rid of Obama's family in Afganistan. Obama's cousin, Osama even had to give up throne and relinquish power because this man named Bush, bushwhacked him to seize power in Afganistan. But if Bush thought Osama would give up that easy, he had 'nother think...er..thought..ah..whatever coming.

Osama Bin Laden always had a plan. Plan 'B' to be precise. He knew he couldn't conquer America by force, but only through political will. And Bush did not believe in beating about the bush, with his statements such as Osama is the curse of the world and had to be wiped out. But Osama had always someone to bank on in America, his very own cousin, Obama. Obama was being trained in India, by Osama to take over America and Bush thought he was sitting pretty.

America has always had a history of racial discrimination. I remember Mohammed Ali [ former heavy weight boxing champion of the world] telling me this story about how it was after he won the Olympic title. Ali dropped in at this restaurant where they wouldn't entertain any blacks. He thought he being the world champ would make some difference to these white morons, especially to this waiter who declared " We don't serve niggers" and Ali said " I don't eat them either".

It was partly due this alienation from the main race, that Obama had come down to settle down in India, in Chennai, to be precise. He was my classmate and best friend in school and that is how I know the inside story. Obama was a short thickset boy then and we used to call him "katta" Obama in school. And we were inseperable. In the early eighties, his father set up a transport service called 'Katta Obaman' transport service, which was later taken over by the Tamil Nadu Govt. He also was the leading man and hero in the famous tamil movie, Veera Pandi Katta Obaman.

Obama jumped into political fray at a very early age. He joined up with DMK who were very much against the aryan race and Klu Klax Klan. He was very good at studies and after school, he went to Harvard and I, wayward. We would always keep in touch though.

The rest is history.

Obama had phoned yesterday to say that the White House will not be called thus after he was sworn in. He has decided to call it 'Black House'. A lot of "white mischief" had taken place in the office and he says it was time to cover up all the previous operations with a "black label".

It is very good news for Indian wives that Obama has taken up the charge d' affairs of american parliament. His immediate plans to stop outsourcing of work would mean that those engaged in software development would be hard pressed for any development, which will lead to more men reaching home very early in the evening and spending more time with the family. Also their flaccid and software approach to their soft, weary wives would be little more hardware-developement-oriented in nature, leading to more placid state of affairs at home. With less money flowing in, there will be less demand for a lot of things in the market, leading to crashing of prices of all essential commodities such as luxury cars, land, gold and to a great extent, even vegetables.

Now that I have inhouse information on every policy matters, I shall keep you posted
of every little development the american govt makes.

All I can say now is , "O BA MA GAWD, OBAMA IS GREAT"

The Lord, an elephant and some friends of nature

2008-10-31T04:34:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a friend who always ends up being the butt of jokes. I also have few of those, the story of one I have narrated in this blog. I seem to attract these elements in hordes. Obviously there is something about me that they like very much and if my mother's words are to taken seriously, [ I don't and I suggest you don't either], birds of the same colour, feather, beak and religion stick together.

Here is one such story, wherein stars a good friend of mine Hrishi and a group of friends.

Hrishi and group of friends, who call themselves friends of nature, regularly take an anual trekking to Sabarimala [ a place of pilgrimage in Kerala]. They take a deviation from the regular route, i.e., they reach Sabarimala, going through a rough terrain called Erumeli, which is a virginal forest land and where there is a natural abundance of wild life. They usually take the well worn path, used by pilgrims and take a few meters ofdigression only when the call of nature is really pressing and very demanding. Even then, the group does not split, but stay in earshot distance from each other. On one such 'deviated' trip, amidst cries of " Kallum Mullum, Kalikku Methai", they were cries of "run for your life, AN ELEPHANT!!

BUT IT WAS TOO LATE!!! The elephant was too near and almost on them. And you know, you can run fast with your pants on, but not at all with your pants half down, a natural position you assume in the line of duty of attending to these calls of nature. The only natural thing to do, in these pressing times of impending danger, is to seek out the assistance of the 'Great One', Swamy Ayyappan, which was naturally what Hrishi and his friends of nature proceeded to do. In the squatting position, the elephant seen in close quarters is certainly a towering phenomenon with phenominal degree of menace, and it was not lost on our friends of nature. They closed their eyes, and without even bothering to stand up, cried aloud, all in unison. "SWAMIYE SARANAM AYYAPPA, RAKSHIKANE THAMPURANE" [ HELP US O' GOD].

And Lo!!!SWAMY AYYAPPAN answered their prayers with a loud laughter. What was a mere elephant before the might of the GREAT ONE and naturally our friends of nature were relieved [relief as in relief you feel from a narrow escape and not as in relieved bowels] to hear the laughter that came from the skies. It is not in our everyday lives that Swamy Ayyappan, personally descends from the skies to relieve [ the same meaning as the one above] you of your burdens. With a great sense of gratitude, the friends of nature jumped up, pulled up their pants not wanting to be caught with their pants down [ no pun intended] whether it be the elephant or AYYAPPAN.

There atop the elephant appeared the beaming face of their saviour, the mahout. The elephant was a tame one and was used to transport the trees felled in the forest and our friends of nature simply bumped into it or rather, the elephant simply caught them with their pants down. Needless to say, the mahout fell off the elephant, laughing his guts out and our friends of nature, all ashen faced, joined the mahout [ still lying on the ground and still laughing] in laughing mania that lasted days.

Colonise the moon

2008-10-26T03:04:00.000-07:00

My name is Madhavan Nayan and I work in VSSC. Iam the top gun
in my field, which is sending rockets to the moon. This is also a
place I call home because I stay back here for the night, many times
a week.

"You know what happens to the busy bee?...One day he will find
out that someone else is using his 'honey' ", my wife would tell me
thus when I tell her that I had lots of work at the office and would
not come back home for the night. But after successful attempts
such as the ASLV [ Arabian Sea Landing Vehicles], I wasn't going
to be stopped. I had a dream. I was reaching out to the moon.

"Now listen, you moongrel..eh..ah..I mean..mongrel!!. You cannot
make sure if your kids are going to school, but you think you can get
that contraption to the moon, of all places? You think a trip to the
moon will bring down the price of moong dal or rice?" Yes, that is
what my wife said..She said that..yes.

I wasn't going to be distracted. I had enough information from my
secret agent in NASA, Naomi Cambell [code name - ISRO 007] ,
that the americans were planning to colonise the moon. They were
establishing colonies everywhere. I had to establish territory in
the moon before americans ever got there. You see, America was a
place where a lot of Indians lived once before Christopher Colombus
brought his men over to displace the Indian community and establish
territory. I had a lot of cousins [ twice removed] in America. But Iam
ashamed to say that they are all working for Chris' nephews
and grandchildren, now. Naomi's message was loud and clear,
" 'Colonial cousins' fame skyrocket to moon". Jeeeezzz!!!!!!!!
They had taken off. I had no time to lose.

The final day of the launch had arrived.

"four...three..two..one..GO!!", I screamed at the top of my voice
and the rocket took off with a thundering blast. The blast and fire
of the rocket hit my head with a nerve shattering bang and I fell
unconcious on the floor . I still could hear the words 'moon...moon',
dripping out of my mouth

"Doctor, his name is Venugopal Unnikrishnan and Iam his wife. Ever since
he was suspended from service from VSSC, for being under the influence of
alcohol while on duty, he was not behaving normally. The night before Chandrayan was launched, he was so drunk and had not slept. At 6.45am, he announced to us that he was sending his own personal rocket to the moon, alongside Chandrayan and he set a rocket [ a kind of fire cracker you buy for Deepavali] aflame, sitting next to the TV, watching Chandrayan being launched, live. The only way to stop him was hit him on the head with a sledge hammer, which was all that was available. Is he trying to say moon..moon or is he simply moaning in pain, Doctor?"

Cherian in birthday suit

2008-10-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

When I think about the past, how more than half my life went by, in a jiffy, I wonder if I would have made any difference to it if I had a chance to have a go at it again. I might not even take the offer at all. You are not going to believe this...one of the reasons is Cherian, my best friend. If I got another chance to redeem myself , that would mean that Cherian would also get another chance and he may use it to change himself radically from the person that he is now. Now what is life without an occassional dose of Cherian? He has become as addictive as your regular bed coffee. You know very well that coffee is not good for you , though it is ok in small doses. I have had people give varied opinions about Cherian , as myriad as, " I didn't know what a headache looked like until I met cherian" or " you do not miss headaches however frequent they were, now do you?", when they were asked a simple question such as "would you miss Cherian if he went away for a long time?".

Cherian hails from the Great Royal family of the "Perumals". His great great great grandfather was called King Cheran [King Cheraman Perumal fame]. But when the advent of Christianity came with St.Xavier visiting Kerala in the early 500AD, King Cheran converted to Christianity [ that was the kind of thing in vogue at that time] and made a minor change to his name...i.e.,
he became King Cher[i]an.

What makes Cherian so unique, is the way he reacts to things. He considers himself an incurable romantic. Yet, when this lovely girl, in engineering college, asked him, " Cheian dear, may I hold your hand?", Cherian absent mindedly replied, " no, it is not heavy, I shall hold it myself..". Now that hurt...I mean that hurt like hell. Not many girls dared to give Cherian a caressing glance
with a romatic eye, ever after. Cherian was thought to be rude and sarcastic, but we, the close friends, know it is not true. Another thing about Cherian is that if you asked him the same question three times, you would get three different answers. Lalu Mangal, who is currrently engaged in the uphill task of teaching Cherian to play guitar, begs to differ. " Four", he says, " because he is square". Now that is rude, coming from the guru himself.

Now, let me knock of the bull...t and come to the point. Why wouldn't I want a go at redeeming myself, if I got a chance? Like I told ya earlier, Cherian would also change himself and with it all fun in life. From the days when we were in school, Cherian was always there to butt in anywhere with his ready-mix of jokes or he would be butt of the joke, himself. Nothing funny ever happened, without Cherian starring in it. You name it, Cherian has done it. And he excelled in all sports and games too. He is credited with scoring four goals playing a cricket match against the 'B' batch, in Govt.Arts College. He scored the first goal when the ball he threw at the stumps, hit the wicket keeper on the head that knocked him out for the rest of the season, the second when he swung his bat to hit a sixer even before the bowler released the ball and got bowled out, the third when stopped a square drive, catching the ball in his mouth, the fourth when he stopped the ball at the "slips" and ran with the ball to the other end beating the batsman to it, but failing to stump him out [ he forgot... he thought he was doing a 100m dash]. And he sings too. But do not ever ask Lalu Mangal , his opinion. If you asked him, , his answer would be something like," Pigs might fly!!".

Now here is a story about Cherian which still does the rounds in the friend's circle. It is called Cherian in birthday suit. Ofcourse it was not same dress which he wore on november 9th, 1960. Iam so sorry if I coveyed such an impression. Of course, Cherian still wears the same outfit, only it is a bit crumpled and stretched, as though it needed a bit of pressing and ironing badly. This story does not refer to that particular dress of his, but another one which he received as birthday gift.

This happenend way back in college when Cherian started to learn to play guitar from Lalu Mangal. Needless to say, his outfit wasn't as shabby as it is now, it had a glow and gleam to it, with all the daily massage and cleaning it was subjected to. And he hoped to impress a few female hearts with his deft work of fingers, of course on the guitar strings [ what else did you think?].

Lalu was an ideal choice of a guitar guru. For one, he did not charge any fees and did not mind if Cherian occassionally [once a day] broke the guitar strings. He attacked the strings with a vengence, tearing at it sometimes, enraged by its refusal to produce any sound that remotely resembled anything he called "moosik". Lalu had to put up with not only the cacophonic flatulence emnated from the guitar, but also all the verbal diarrhea cherian's fury unleashed, as well. And he would remark thus, sometimes. " There is no point in teaching you anything, Cherian. Whatever I say goes in one ear and out the other ear, because there is nothing in between to stop them". Now we used to call him fat headed, but this void and emptiness Lalu referred to was never noticed by any of us.

Cherian did not have much time at his command. He was supposed to play guitar for one of the musical functions to be held at Kovalam beach. He was confident he could, though Lalu's comments like "that will be the day" were not exactly very encouraging. One more thing bothered Cherian. What if the guitar strings broke again, while he was playing on stage? He may not look it, but to be prepared for any eventualiy was Cherian, if not anything else. He ordered for some guitar strings, to be brought from England. He was very happy to know that his cousin in England bought, in an auction, guitar strings used by none other than the famous actress and singer, Barbara Streissand. Cherian proudly announced to everyone this fact. He could hardly contain himself. He told everyone to be present for his birthday, which happened to the day before day of college day celebrations, so he could show everyone this special gift.

We all reached Cherian's house at the appointed time and there was Cherian waving this package covered with a very brightly coloured paper. In front of about 100 of his friends, Cherian unwrapped the packet. And pulled out what looked like anything but guitar strings. It was an elastic band which had a few strange looking attachements made of very thin cloth.

"Those are G-Strings!!! Proabably worn by Barbara Streissand when she strutted around the beaches", someone yelled loudly. Until then I had never seen G-Strings in my life. I do not recall anyone using one either. Cherian grew livid with rage and confronted his cousin for playing the worst ever prank possible. But his cousin insisted that this was what Cherian had ordered and showed the letter Cherian send him.

"Dear Biju, I am due to appear in a function, to be held at Kovalam beach, clad as smartly as possible and even play git..er..this musical instrument. Could you send me some Gi...er G strings so I can use them in case I need them?"

Cherian could not spell guitar right and so he cut short the word guitar strings to g strings and I think he never expected to receive a piece of clothing that can be comfortably folded and packed in a match box.
All said and done, he is a great friend who will stand by through thick and thin [and it is not the reason why he is called thick headed, period], a real buddy to all who care to try and understand the complex personality, that is Cherian.

THE BLACK & WHITE OF THE MATTER

2008-10-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

This is just a narration of an incident that happened when I was very active in an organisation called the PFA [People For Animals]. A few days after joining the group, I assumed the role of joint secretary of PFA. The secretary happened to be a very stern looking woman named Leela Latheef . She had this nasty habit of making me do just about everything she was supposed to do and take the credit for it. And on that fateful afternoon, my beauty nap was shattered by a telephone ringing, so furiously, as though shouting all profanities you could imagine at me. The only person who could bring about such conditions on inanimate objects was Leela Latheef.

I picked up the phone, " hello Leela chechi"

"how do you always know it is me?"

"never mind. What's up?'

"Now listen, dingbat. I found this strange looking ant which hasblack and white marking on its body in my kitchen"

"say what!!!"

"Yes, an ant with black and white lines on its...er...buttocks."

"Ant's buttocks !!!!!???"

"well, whatever you call its rear end".

" Chechi, are you sure it is an ant? As far as I know, only zebras have black and white lines on their body. Are you sure it is not a zebra?"

"listen you dingaling. I have that ant in the palm of my hand, righthere. You couldn't do hold a zebra in the palm of the hand, now could you? "

She had a point there, and a very pertinent one. She weighed about 15-20 kg less than an adult zebra and her palm couldn't be big enough to hold one.

" now what do you want me to do?"

"Now go to Prem's house, find out all you can about this particularspecies of ants. I think this is a very rare find..something that was thought to be extinct. The world could be in for a shock, Venu, whenI tell everyone of my findings. After Prem's, go off to meet thedirector of the zoo,Mr. Ravindran and report the finding to him and get back here, in my house, in five minutes, pronto".

Prem was supposed to be a walking encyclopedia on animals, birds,insects, and all creepy-crawlies. He was very short man, in fact, he was so short, he was always the last one to know when it rained. His face had a perpetual frown, acquired from years of squinting into holes and crevices made by insects. I always kept my nose tightly shut, in his presence, for fear of him poking a finger in there to check for anything that walked, creeped or crawled.

"hi Prem" I yelled. I never go too near him lest I get inspected with those fingers.

"Hi bud, what's crawling...I mean.. cooking?

"I told him the story.

"Never heard of any such species. Let's check it with Mr.Ravindran, anyway"

We were made to wait for an hour at Mr.Ravindran's office. He hated all the PFA members and needless to say we had this feeling we were Antartica, looking for penguins and seals. Ravindran was a tall, thin man in his early fiftees. Until you walked upto him, you couldn't be sure he was facing you frontward or sideways....he was that thin. He was always wired to his seat for fear being blown away if someone just much as sneezed and of course, he never switched on the tablefan.

"what do you want?" he growled

"Sir, we found this strange looking ant and an ant that...."

"Listen, Venu. I have my hands full of work this morning and I don'thave the time nor the inclination to listen to this story of ants.Make it very short."

"Sir, it is very rare species of ants"

"ok, put it along with the other insects".

"Now Sir, if I may point out.. we do not have any other insects".

"Whatever happened to the other members of the PFA?"

We came out dejected and depressed. I was going to mortally ruin all chances of Leela chechi's dream of getting into history books withthis rare find. I decided to confront Leela chechi with my findings on the issue.Leela chechi lived in a big house, half of which known only to the dogs and cats that lived there. I mean it took an excruciatingly painful, long search of the surrounding to find out where she was in the house. She was in the company of Sarala, another PFA member, whose husband was a building contractor. Sarala was what you called a 15 year old boy's dream, I mean, she had big muscles and even a faint ghost of a mustache. She and Leelachechi greeted me with wide grins, Leela chechi's being wider and broader. You would think if she didn't have ears at the side of her head, the ends of her lips would meet each other behind her head.

" know what, Venu?. Sarala's workers were painting the windows white and iron grills black. This irritated a colony of ants, which had colonised the crevice on the window. You know, these ants... when they are angry, they raise the back side in a show of temper, which rubbed against wet paint on the grill and window sill, leaving those black and white marks on their body. And I thought...hi..hi.. And youdingbat, you told the entire world that I made this silly mistake. You have a big mouth".

Yes, I needed a big mouth because that is where I kept my foot.